Madrid Open accumulator: Tipsarevic can reverse the odds

With the top eight seeds all given a bye to the second round, Monday’s action offers the chance to see some competitive ties – and subsequently some excellent value – at the Madrid Open.

These four matches pay just over 15/1 as an accumulator.

Fognini to beat Youzhny @ 8/13

Fabio Fognini has enjoyed a fruitful clay court season thus far, the highlight of which has been a run to the semi-final at the Monte Carlo Masters, in which he saw off challenges from Richard Gasquet, Tomas Berdych and Andreas Seppi, all of whom are ranked in the world’s top 20.

A quarter-final appearance in Buenos Aires and a semi-final in Acapulco– where he encountered esteemed clay-courter David Ferrer on both occasions – mean that the Italian comes to Madrid with plenty of time on court under his belt, and an 11-5 clay record this year.

Conversely, Mikhail Youzhny is 1-3 on the surface, dropping his last three of those matches.

Raonic to beat Davydenko @ 2/5

Milos Raonic has never met Russian veteran Nikolai Davydenko before, but the latter has gone down to two big servers already this season on clay: Tomas Berdych and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. At 6-foot-5, Raonic’s serve is a formidable asset.

In addition, the Croat has good form on this surface having reached the semi-final in Barcelona, where he lost no face in defeat to a rampant Rafael Nadal. The Croat’s form has been good this term, and he has now compiled an 18-7 record across all tournaments. Davydenko meanwhile is 2-3 on clay this term – Raonic undoubtedly justifies his price here.

Tipsarevic to beat Monaco@ 13/8

While clay has witnessed Juan Monaco’s most successful days on the ATP Tour, Janko Tipsarevic has a strong chance of upsetting the odds here.

The Serb got the better of the Spaniard in both of their meetings in 2012, the first of which took place on clay in a three-set final of the Stuttgart’s Open.

Melzer to beat Nishikori @ 13/8

Five of Melzer’s 12 ATP Tour finals appearances have come on clay courts, while Nishikori has just one final appearance on the surface. The Japanese player has never progressed beyond the second round at the French Open, while his opponent was semi-finalist at Roland Garros in 2010; at 4/9 Nishikori seems short.

While the Austrian may be 2-3 on clay this year, that is three more matches then his counterpart has played (Nishikori is 1-1). One of those victories came against the formidable clay court specialist Nicolas Almagro (12 ATP titles on clay).

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing